Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Learning to Use Good Judgment


Tuesday, April 28, 2020

I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.  Romans 7:15

Leave your simple ways behind, and begin to live; learn to use good judgment.”  Proverbs 9:6

If you’ve ever had a wood splinter in your finger, you know it will nag you with a painful reminder everytime you grip something.  If you’ve ever had a paper-cut, you understand you will manage to rub it the wrong way twenty-eight times a day.  And if you’ve ever read what Paul wrote about doing stupid stuff, while failing to do smart stuff, you are well on your way to comprehending why the whole idea of wisdom is not to cram your head full of thoughts, good, bad, or trivial; it’s all about being able to live in a way that makes sense in three ways:
          1.     The ability to be in right relationship with your Creator
          2.     The pathway to being in right relationship with your Community
          3.     The pathway to being at rest…having peace within your own heart.
The apostle Paul had a hard-driving way about him; he was a Type-A that made obsessive-compulsive people look like slugs.  He had to get clobbered on the Damascus Road with a spiritual 2” x 4” to wake-up to the fact that his wisdom was nothing but a splinter of foolishness driving him into the ground. 
Paul knew this every day like a paper cut; it nagged him, but he couldn’t shake living like that.  And then he met Jesus, and things began to change.  His so-called wisdom began to show itself for what it really was, pride masquerading as being right.  He not only had to re-think his behavior, but everything about his life.  It took a long time to sink-in (about fourteen years in all see Galatians 1-2), but he finally learned how to submit his life to Godly control – and with that came wisdom for really living.
The apostle Peter had much the same problem, but with a different pedigree.  Peter was not an astute rubber of elbows with the higher-ups.  Peter was a common, uneducated fisherman.  But he occupied a big space, having been on the inner-circle with Jesus, and a chief leader of the early church.  Peter’s impetuous roller coaster life of being hero one moment, and coward the next, made him a perfect pastor.  By the time he figured out his selfish, prideful ways were destroying whatever manhood God had given him, and he was making a mess of his life and witness, Peter had grown to know how to counsel the rest of us who would come behind.  Peter had walked with Christ, denied him three times, and been forgiven; that was a taste of the divine, and Peter had learned to cling to God’s ways over his own way of crashing through life like a bull in a china shop.  Peter’s advice to us is born of his own testimony of what real living is all about:

So get rid of all evil behavior.  Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech.  Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation.  Cry out for this nourishment, now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness.  1 Peter 2:1-3

For You Today
If you’ve been driven with trying to do better, do more, get more, and experience everything, you’re in a place where Peter and Paul called home.  Solomon also tried to live life on his own terms.  Maybe it’s time to heed what these wise men had to learn the hard way.  Wisdom is hard to come by, but when you give-in to God’s way, good judgment is on the way.
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!V
Title Image:  Pixabay.com      Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
For another post on Proverbs 9:6 see Standing in the Sweet Spot

No comments:

Post a Comment